If actually do have musical instruments with me and great talents like you guys have, I would take this one and do something along the lines of Sigh's Gallows Gallery. Real catchy but still metal. To be exact, more like the song Messiahplan on the album.

I would probably write about growing up and how different we interpret things compared to the easy way we interpret things when we were little. That's what I felt when I saw that picture.

For the other pictures, they look like they belong to a Lantlos or Alcest album. Hahhaa.

Just about done my song. All the recording is done and it's mostly mixed but I'm not totally happy with my guitar tone when I compare it to some bands doing a simillar style. I don't really have much experience with amp modellers though so I'm just gonna try a few different ones tonight and see if I get anywhere.

When we do reviews and everything I hope those who did contribute at least take the time to explain how they arrived at the song they did based on the artwork. I know i plan on doing a write up on my thought process.

The official deadline is some 6 hours away from the time of this post, though obviously I won't necessarily be around to immediately draw the challenge to a close. In that regard, there will be some leeway with the actual time between the deadline and the posting of the compilation, something like an additional 12 hours.

So, if you miss the deadline by a couple of hours, no worries, you can still submit your song because chances are I'll still be asleep, at work, or both anyway.

Oh, I figured since I can't attach a text file to soundcloud I'd just post it in the thread. Although if other people are gonna have text files maybe I'll just do that now and put it on mediafire or something.

Artwork: 44Song: Dandyish Ignorance of MorbidityCredits:Metantoine - Concept, lyrics, vocals, recording of vocals.IX Leviathan - Composed all of the bass parts that aren't the same as the guitar parts.Zodijackyl - Guitars, bass/drum synths, writing all of the guitar/drum parts. Recording, mixing, vocal editing/butchering.

I only worked on this song on three separate days, all of which were spread out because I didn't start working on it until I knew I would have a few hours of uninterrupted time. The last one was today, since there's nothing like a deadline to make you work!

I wasn't at all enthusiastic about the artwork I ended up with, but our resident history scholar Tony was more enthusiastic than me. If it wasn't for his enthusiasm, I probably would not have gotten this done. After throwing some concepts and ideas for the music back and forth, I finally came up with some dirty, old school death metal riffs. I recorded two guitar tracks using my LTD Horizon tuned to Eb, but it sounded too clean, so I decided on using a Gibson SG tuned to C# (I'm pretty sure it was tuned to C when I put it away, and I didn't change the strings). I programmed the drums, then decided that the best way to give it a rough, dirty sound was to set the guitar down, spend a few minutes chatting in IRC, then record one take, then repeat that until I had the four guitar tracks. I finished this around the middle of the month, which was the first half of the song. This was recorded on a broken pair of headphones, so I didn't get to day two of working on it until I borrowed a pair of monitor headphones.

Another setback occured because Tony was offline due to moving, so I wasn't able to get his feedback on the direction of the song. Near the end of the month, I added two more sections, which are really the best part of the song - the slow, doomy parts. One relies on the guitar, the other lays back and lets the vocals take the lead. I sent this to Tony, and he recorded the vocals the same day. I said that I would work with one take, and I edited the vocals to fit in with the guitars - I think I may have butchered them, but it sounds pretty cool. The final section is completely unedited, while the earlier ones are hacked up pretty much line-by-line. At my suggestion, Tony recorded the vocals using the microphone built into his laptop, and I played around with it to beef up the lost low end. By the end of that day, we had a full working version of the song, mostly mixed, and messed up because I didn't realize the monitor headphones I was using this time around didn't have a very full low-mid end. I used way too much reverb on the vocals, and once I listened to it on other speakers, it sounded like something exploded in a cave.

Last week, Tony asked Stephane (IX Leviathan) to contribute bass parts. He wrote some really creative stuff, with the encouragement to Geezer it up and wander where the song was wide open. Unfortunately he wasn't able to record the parts. I recorded a section to test the sound of my bass, but it's a crappy bass and the strings are many years old, and it didn't sound very good at all. I ended up synthesizing the bass parts using a combination of an electric bass and acoustic guitar tone, to get a bit more emphasis on the attack. I probably should have cut the guitars out at the bottom end to bring out the bass more, but I was simply too damn lazy to re-work EQ settings that sounded alright on everything I listened to them through. I added another two guitar tracks to the middle section, this time using the LTD Horizon, which has a sharper sound. There's a bit of noise on these tracks. I also added a very simple lead/solo at the end to fill in where the vocals finish. I cleared up the mix a bit, cut down the reverb on the vocals, and decided that it wasn't the time to attempt to learn mastering, so I bounced the mix that still sounds rough (as intended), and it is done.

I'll write a short writeup about the lyrics, I'll do another one later if you guys want to know more.

It's basically a mix of Otto Dix's life, the painter of our picture, some WW1 history stuff (I know that's cliché, but that's the period) and some Weimar republic stuff (The period between the 2 World Wars in Germany). The song will be the 3rd part of a concept for my MA project (see the "what are you up..." thread). I really really liked writing these lyrics and I think my two other songs are as good.

This was a very fun and challenging song for me to work on. Fun because I liked the artwork concept, and because I had an idea on what to do with it right away. Challenging because the idea I imagined turned out to be incredibly ambitious and difficult to execute, but I think I did alright. It took me around three weeks of daily, constant work to complete, because of the sheer huge scope of the arrangements and composition. I think I was the first one to send it in, as I wanted to complete it before my summer school began.

Artwork-wise, I got a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau called Nymphs and Satyr. I did a bit of research on it and it turns out there's nothing very special about it. It's just a painting depicting, well, a couple of nymphs and a satyr. No symbolism behind it or anything, so I was free to write whatever I wanted, and do whatever I wanted with the concept itself. Since the challenge didn't require a specific musical genre, I went with what I do best -- white collar USPM. With a couple of folky tones, to give it a medieval, mystical vibe to go with the artwork! So I sat down and started writing riffs on my Eb-tuned imitation Strat. I wrote some riffs, and then I wrote more riffs, and I finished by writing even more riffs! I think there are around 18 different riffs in the whole song, and that's without counting the acoustic and folky parts with different instrumentation. The "riffs everywhere" mentality ended up giving it a progressive feeling which I'm very proud of, specially because of how many time signature changes I used all around.

The drums and bass are programmed, but I tried to make them as organic as possible, and to give the drums that big 80s USPM snare sound. The bass always jumps around doing different stuff from the guitar, so it probably took me an even longer time to do these than the riffs themselves! Afterwards, I wrote the flute and harp parts; I used a keyboard and I simply started meddling around with the scales and jamming up some melodies to get a very cool folky vibe out of them. It might not be everyone's coup of tea (I'm looking at you, Zodi e_e) but I think they go well with what I wanted the artwork to sound like!

Recording that damn thing was a chore; it's a very complex song, with lots of different sections, and it's also very technically demanding. I tried my best at the vocals, going for an early John Arch sound, with lots of arrangements and harmonies done to the vocal lines, but I simply can't match the man. I'm proud of the way they came out, though. I wrote lyrics about a mystical story of nymphs, dryads and naiads. The nymphs of the lakes and the forests, enchanting a satyr that has entered their land. I gave it that occult magical sound in the style of Awaken the Guardian's lyrics. On the subject of the guitar solos -- I didn't write them, I simply improvised over the backing track and recorded the first take. I usually do this for most of my leads.

Finally, since I'm not a professional sound engineer or anything, and I didn't want to ruin the end product, I left the track unmixed. I simply don't have enough knowledge on the matter to make a good job out of it, and I would rather leave it like that than risk hurting the mix by doing a crappy job at it This gives it a rough sound, but it shouldn't be that big of a problem. In any case, I hope you enjoy The Naiad, by No Reflection!